When Topps launched Five Star in football back in 2010, I was literally floored by how beautiful the cards were. Not only was it the only NFL licensed football product that had all on card autos, but every single one of the cards looked as premium as it should. Topps eventually ported the set over to baseball, mostly with diminished results. High end in baseball rarely works, unless you die cut lame crap into the card and slap a Triple Threads logo on it. I know, I know, I dont get it either.

Here are some of the big hits up so far:

2015 Topps Five Star Kris Bryant Auto RC

2015 Topps Five Star Sandy Koufax Auto Green /5

2015 Topps Five Star Francisco Lindor Auto RC

Thus, Five Star Baseball continues to look awesome, but has never really lived up to the hype. It has been plagued by checklist issues, content issues, and paled in comparison to recent hit products like Dynasty, which seemed to offer more of what high end baseball collectors wanted. In the same vein, there is still a legit argument that super premium products in baseball rarely work without a significant push for crazy content.

This year’s Five Star is retooled to be a 2 card box in a very different format. Instead of 3 boxes per case with 6 cards per box, its now 8 boxes per case. I actually like this format change a lot, even though it isnt the same potential wow factor “ooooh gotta slide to the next card” type of experience when opening a box. At the same time, its not as much of a kick in the nuts to strike out on a 150 dollar box versus a 500 dollar box. There may be more duds, but the positive perception of opening a cheaper box is much different.

The product remains all on card, and has some LARGE cards to pull from the set. The jumbo patch autos alone should fetch some nice money, and I have already seen some fun names on the checklist. The main problem is that Correa is not in this product from what I can tell, and that is going to pose some issues that can only be made up by other bigger names.

Players like Steven Matz, Noah Syndergaard Francisco Lindor, and of course Kris Bryant will definitely pick up some of the slack along side the usual big names. Trout, Kershaw, Ichiro, Aaron, Koufax and Ripken all have cards, and that will be great, and the logo patch cards with cut signatures will be cool too.

My favorite cards in the inscriptions are gone for a second year, and that makes me incredibly sad, even though it does continue to make the older versions more desirable. I do like that they have continued with the gold and silver signings, but those inscription cards are what made Five Star what it is. They ditched them in Football too, only to see the entire product likely replaced by Definitive Collection, which seems to be quite the bombshell set in itself.

I cant help but feel like Five Star is turning into a higher premium Topps Supreme product with all on card autographs, and I am also not sure if that is a bad thing. We will see how this year’s set performs, and this might be one last trot around the bases before something else gets a look in this part of the calendar. If Five Star goes away in 2016, I am still going to miss it regardless.